The Social Network: 7/10

I will start this review with a bit of name dropping. About two years ago I met Jessie Eisenberg star of this week’s film ‘The Social Network’. He was at the Edinburgh film festival promoting the chronically poorly advertised Adventureland. He was, I am glad to report a thoroughly decent chap who was filled with excitement at being in Britain for the first time. We talked about the weather and the workings of the devolved government and I will say it again he was lovely. That night I went to the premier of Adventureland in which he played a character who was, yes you guessed it lovely. Which made his appearance as Mark Zuckenberg a man as famous for being an arse hole as a programmer raise an eyebrow.

The plot follows the story of the creation of Facebook through the litigation proceedings brought against its founder the brilliant but socially inept Mark Zuckerberg. The film is told in through flashbacks and in the words of Zuckerberg himself, the Winklevoss twins and facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin.

The conversational pace of the film is frantic. The opening scene in which Zuckenberg gets dumped by his girlfriend sees a rally of words across the table quicker than a baseline battle between Nadal and Federer. Once I had tuned my ear to the frantic pace of the conversation I found the script to be filled with an intelligent dry wit that resulted in more laughs amongst the audience than I would have expected.

Reputation wise there are few winners as is often the case when business dealings are scrutinised. The Winklevoss Twins (or the Winklevie as Mark memorably refers to them) come out as numpties squared; Napster founder Sean Parker comes across as a bit of a chancer and a freeloader riding on the coat tails of Mark Zuckerberg, who is himself portrayed as cold and charmless but for a reprieve given to him in the film’s final scene.

The film has been criticised for taking liberties with the truth but quite frankly I don’t care this is an entertainment blog not a history blog. (If it were both I would tell you that Louis XV was the first person to use an elevator: in 1743 his "flying chair" carried him between the floors of the Versailles palace.) As a film the screen writer (Aaron Sorkin) and director (David Fincher) have done a great job at presenting what is essentially a court room drama in an intelligent way to as wider audience as possible.